


so hold on, hold on to what we are (hold on to your heart)

by misskraken



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, M’Baku needs a hug, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Endgame, so does Okoye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:44:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskraken/pseuds/misskraken
Summary: Grief is a funny thing, M’Baku thinks. It is never as sharp nor as dull as he needs it to be.





	so hold on, hold on to what we are (hold on to your heart)

**Author's Note:**

> The long-promised Infinity Wars/Endgame M’Challa fic

Grief is a funny thing, M’Baku thinks. It is never as sharp nor as dull as he needs it to be.

When his father died, the force of M’Baku’s sorrow seemed to splinter him the way a bolt of lightning strikes a half-dead tree. The horrible truth of his absence, the knowledge that M’Baku would never again feel his calloused hand on his shoulder or see his broad grin, hit him instantly. The pain took years to fade, and even now M’Baku feels a sharp prick in his chest whenever he thinks of him.

It is different with T’Challa.

At times, there is a numbness that pervades every corner of M’Baku’s being, so heavy and foreign that it makes M’Baku long for pain. Other times, however, it does not seem real at all. When M’Baku awakens in the middle of the night and sees that T’Challa’s spot in his bed is empty and cold, M’Baku rolls into its place to warm it and tells himself that T’Challa has only gone to the bathroom and will be back any moment.

If that is the lie M’Baku must tell himself in order to go back to sleep, then so be it.

~

Ramonda is formally crowned a week after the Snap. When she calls together what remains of the council, there is a haunted, glazed look in her warm brown eyes that M’Baku knows will never fade. The young princess was lost too.

After the meeting, General Okoye pulls M’Baku aside.

“They went after the mad titan,” she murmurs. “What remains of the Avengers, and a woman with the power to travel through space,” she shakes her head somewhat incredulously, “who apparently did not find it necessary to drop by until now.”

“And?” M’Baku asks, already knowing what Okoye’s answer will be.

Okoye shakes her head.

“They killed him, but he had already destroyed the stones,” Okoye says, a slight shake in her voice. When she looks up at M’Baku, he sees that her eyes are bloodshot to the point of almost seeming crimson. “They are not coming back.”

M’Baku swallows past the tightness in his throat.

“Have you informed the queen?” M’Baku asks.

“I will,” Okoye says. “When her grief is not so sharp, I will.”

~

M’Baku remembers the night he and T’Challa first slept together.

They had been dancing around each other ever since M’Baku’s first day on the Council. Six months of foreplay, as T’Challa would later call it. T’Challa’s lingering hand on M’Baku’s forearm, a shared smile from across the room, a “diplomatic meeting” that had ended up lasting four hours longer than expected... individually, these things might have been easy to overlook. But there was only so much that M’Baku could endure. In the end, it had taken almost no courage for M’Baku to approach T’Challa at Jabariland’s harvest festival and ask him to to come home with him.

T’Challa had been so warm underneath him, feverishly so. M’Baku had never held such power in his arms, undulating against him like a summer storm. M’Baku felt feverish himself, drunk or mad or both. T’Challa’s nipple in his mouth, M’Baku’s tongue in the crease of T’Challa’s thigh, the scream T’Challa had let out when he finally came... all seared into M’Baku’s memories, knocking any sense or logical thought straight from his mind.

When M’Baku awoke some time later, T’Challa was gone from his bed.

He sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he searched the room.

“I’m over here.”

M’Baku turned and saw T’Challa by the large, circular window that overlooked the village below M’Baku’s fortress. The harvest moon shown fat and bright, an exquisite shade of orangey-gold no human dye could mimic.

“You were right,” T’Challa said softly. “The moon really is more beautiful in Jabariland.”

M’Baku got out of bed and draped a fur coverlet over his shoulders. He felt heavy and awkward, as if he were some strange spirit possessing a new body. He crossed the room and stood before T’Challa. After a moment of hesitation, he reached forward and pulled T’Challa to him, enfolding him in his arms. To M’Baku’s infinite relief, T’Challa responded in kind, wrapping his arms around M’Baku’s waist and resting his head against his chest. When T’Challa turned his head and pressed a kiss to M’Baku’s sternum, M’Baku felt as if his whole world had been reshaped in the span of a breath.

“My sister’s birthday is next week,” T’Challa said, his breath ghosting across M’Baku’s skin. “Will I see you at the palace? You could spend the night afterwards, if you like.”

M’Baku hummed low in his throat and rubbed his hand across T’Challa’s lower back, noting that the skin there felt like velvet. He imagined T’Challa spread out for him in the royal bedchamber, naked and open. Imagined T’Challa with his legs slung over M’Baku’s shoulders, the bed striking the wall with every thrust.

“I suppose I can work something out,” M’Baku said, bending to kiss T’Challa’s throat so that T’Challa did not see him smile.

T’Challa laughed, and in that moment M’Baku knew that he would never be free of the king. Nor did he want to be.

T’Challa lead him back to bed, and M’Baku fucked him into the mattress until both their worlds split at the seams. His last memory before allowing himself to drift off into slumber was T’Challa stroking his back, murmuring words too soft to hear against his temple.

If M’Baku had known what was to come, he would’ve asked T’Challa what he said.

~

The children are the worst part.

M’Baku personally oversees the care of the Jabari children who lost both parents, ensuring that they are placed in loving homes. It breaks M’Baku’s heart every time, seeing the children who once laughed so loudly in the street now quiet and empty-eyed, somehow knowing without truly understanding that their parents will not return.

He is the leader of half a tribe now.

It is on nights like these that M’Baku finds himself in the temple of Hanuman. He often falls asleep there while praying, prostrate on the floor in front of the granite statue of his god. He drifts off with the prayers still on his lips. On better days, M’Baku asks for wisdom, for guidance, for the knowledge that his people will be able to heal and thrive, as they always have.

On most nights, M’Baku just asks for the strength to face the next day.

T’Challa visits him in his dreams, as do the deceased Jabari. M’Baku does not reach for them, having learned long ago that they will only dance away from his hands, or else crumble into ash all over again. They do not accuse him; they do not need to. They only stare at him, blank-faced and still, and the silence makes M’Baku wish they would scream at him.

“I would have taken your place,” M’Baku tells them. “Anyone one of you. I swear it.”

As usual, the ghosts do not reply.

~

M’Baku still has a few of T’Challa’s clothes. Tunics. Pants. Jackets. Soft thermal sleep shirts, most of which ended up on the floor whenever T’Challa wore them to bed.

T’Challa’s scent has long faded from the material, but sometimes when M’Baku takes an item out and holds it to his chest, he can almost imagine that it is still there: soap and clean skin and sweet oil and something wilder, something uniquely T’Challa. A scent that used to make M’Baku believe in miracles.

He should get rid of them. M’Baku knows this. But every time he determines to donate them, something halts him.

T’Challa will want them back, a small voice says in M’Baku’s mind.

He isn’t coming back. Of course he isn’t.

But M’Baku keeps them all the same.

~

A year passes. Then two. Then three.

Tiny pockets of joy begin to return to the Jabari. Babies are born. Lovers are wed. The seasons change, and the harvest festivals allow time to dance. Slowly, the children of Jabariland begin to play in the streets again. The Jabari do not cast off their sadness so much as they learn to live with it. The scars of grief are still there, but when everyone bears them, no one is truly alone.

Things will never be the same, but then again, no one expects them to be. 

~

On the fourth anniversary of the Snap, M’Baku is visited by General Okoye.

She arrives at M’Baku’s door in the middle of the night. Her head is in need of re-shaving; a short, downy fuzz obscures the tattoos on her skull. She carries her spear in her left hand, but bundled in her parka, she looks surprisingly young. Young and tired.

M’Baku wordlessly lets her in.

They settle in front of the fireplace together. M’Baku pours them both steaming mugs of bissap tea. He hands her one, and she nods her thanks.

They drink in silence for a few minutes. Then Okoye takes a deep breath.

“It is my husband’s birthday today.”

M’Baku nods, wisely remaining silent. He never quite forgave W’Kabi for nearly trampling him during the battle for the crown, but M’Baku has never been one to speak ill of the dead.

“Things were not well between us, after N’Jadaka,” Okoye says. She stares into the fire, her eyes a thousand miles away. “But they were getting better. We were even beginning to consider living together again. I thought... I thought if we had more time...”

Okoye trails off, and her lower lip trembles. When she looks at M’Baku, her eyes are wet with tears.

“I couldn’t protect them,” she whispers. “My only job was to protect them, and I failed.”

“You couldn’t have stopped it,” M’Baku says gently. “None of us could have.”

Okoye shakes her head, her face crumbling as the first tears slip down her face

“You don’t understand,” she says. “I watched T’Challa die.”

Her words suck the air from the room.

“He was trying to help me up,” Okoye says, rocking back and forth. “Told me that it was no place to die, and then he just-“

With that, the last of her control breaks. Okoye buries her face in her hands and begins to sob.

Her sharp, jagged cries are excruciating, but M’Baku does not attempt to placate her. If it is one thing M’Baku has learned over the course of his life, it is that words of comfort exist primarily to sooth the conscious of the comforter. 

Okoye’s life has been a testament of strength, of dedication to her country and her king. But even the strong are not invincible.

She deserves to have her tears, so M’Baku lets her cry.

Eventually, her sobs fade, and she wipes her eyes with her fingertips. 

“Thank you for the tea,” she says as she stands up.

M’Baku nods and shows her to the door.

Okoye steps out into the cold, her crunching footfalls the only sound in the snowy night. Midway to her hovercraft, she pauses and turns to look back at M’Baku.

“He loved you,” she tells him. “You already know that, I’m sure, but he did. He loved you more than anything.”

With that, Okoye gets into the hovercraft and flies away, the ship vanishing into the night.

M’Baku shuts the door and sinks against it. The fire in the hearth has all but died, the embers glowing faintly red.

“T’Challa,” he whispers. To nothing. To no one.

~

When the first circle appears at his feet, M’Baku thinks he is dreaming.

M’Baku is preparing to go to bed when he sees it, a small, sparking ring of fire that grows from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a wagon wheel in the span of a second. M’Baku tries to move away, but the circle grows too quickly and suddenly M’Baku is falling through it into darkness, into-

M’Baku is standing in the heart of Birnin Zana. When he looks down at himself, he is amazed to see that he is inexplicably wearing the armor he wore into battle five years ago, right down to the knobkerrie clutched in his left hand.

Around him, the dead are rising. 

The warriors who crumbled into ash before his eyes step through holes in the air, young and old, from every tribe. Mothers embrace the sons once lost, and families torn apart fall to the ground in a tangle of arms as they are made complete again. The air is filled with cries of joy, with laughter. A scream splits the air, and M’baku turns just in time to see Okoye launch herself at W’Kabi, the two of them swaying on their feet as he kisses her and then buries his face in her shoulder. 

Another circle opens up, and Princess Shuri steps forward, looking for all the world like a newborn lamb, eyes wide and unfocused until she sees Ramonda. They run to each other and embrace, mother and daughter again, both of them crying as they hold each other.

Suddenly the crowd around him falls silent. M’Baku turns, and he suddenly he cannot breathe.

Standing before him, looking the same as he did five years ago, is T’Challa.

He does not remember moving, but suddenly M’Baku is close enough for them to touch. M’Baku can only stare at T’Challa, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly, still half-believing all of this is nothing more than a dream.

T’Challa reaches up, and lays a hand on M’Baku’s face, catching a tear with his thumb.

“How?” is all M’Baku can say.

“I don’t know,” T’Challa says, and then he is laughing and crying at the same time as he pulls M’Baku to him. “I don’t know.”

M’Baku kisses T’Challa in front of their people, and suddenly all the pain of the past five years is lost in the feeling of T’Challa’s lips pressed against his. 

“T’Challa!” Shuri screams, and suddenly she is throwing her arms around his neck, crying almost as hard as he is, Ramonda not far behind. T’Challa embraces them both, and M’Baku takes a step back, allowing T’Challa to have his time with his family.

There will be time to have him all to himself, when everything is said and done.

“King T’Challa,” a voice says from above.

Floating in the air above their heads is a pale, strange man with a red cape that billows as if caught in a strong wind, though there is no breeze in the night air. His hands glow with orange light that knits itself into complex symbols before M’Baku’s eyes.

“One of your boys, my love?” M’Baku whispers out of the corner of his mouth.

“You know, M’Baku,” T’Challa says. “Contrary to popular belief, I am not responsible for every colonizer that can shoot fireworks from his hands.”

The man lands in front of them.

“King T’Challa,” he says again. “My name is Dr. Stephen Strange. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

~

T’Challa and M’Baku do not see each other again until the celebration at the palace three days later. After the battle, T’Challa travels to America for the funeral of Tony Stark, the one they called Iron Man, and then he is working round the clock to settle the newly regenerated Wakandans back into their lives and homes. Meanwhile, M’Baku has his own hands full with the Jabari, but it is joyous, blessed work.

Half of his tribe has returned from the dead, along with half of his heart.

In the seventy-two hours Shuri has been home, she has already managed to whip up the most extraordinary fireworks M’Baku has ever seen. M’Baku feels as if his feet have not touched the ground since they defeated Thanos, and the collective joy of his people buoys him up as he watches them reunite with old friends and dance with strangers.

“You look good,” a voice says from over his shoulder. 

M’Baku turns around, and his heart flips over in his chest when he sees T’Challa. The king is decked out in a fitted black suit with a vibrant scarf covering his left shoulder. His face is radiant when he looks up at M’Baku, and M’Baku has to restrain himself from grabbing T’Challa and crushing their mouths together in front of everyone.

“Thank you,” M’Baku says, running his hands up T’Challa’s waist. T’Challa shivers almost imperceptibly under his touch. “I like this suit.”

“Do you really?” T’Challa says with a raised eyebrow. “It’s about five years out of style. Shuri had a grand time reminding me.”

M’Baku laughs. “How is she?”

“Having a fit over the fact that the rest of the world had had five years to catch up to her tech,” T’Challa says, a fond twinkle in his eye. “It’s horrible, M’Baku. By my calculations, the most brilliant scientists in American are now only twenty-five years behind her inventions instead of thirty.”

They both tilt their heads back and laugh. Oh, how M’Baku has missed this. 

When the two of them catch their breath, T’Challa leans in so that only M’Baku can hear him.

“Come to bed with me, love,” he whispers. 

With that, M’Baku drops his empty wine glass on the nearest table and allows T’Challa to lead him into the hallway.

~

It is hard to tell where the lovemaking ends and the dreams begin.

They spend the whole night relearning each other’s bodies. Five years they have been denied this, and they are determined to make their first night together last, to restitch their hearts and bodies together as inseparably as they were before. M’Baku leaves no inch of T’Challa’s skin unkissed. The inside of his elbow, the nape of his neck, the V of muscle the leads to his groin... it is all perfect, all sacred. 

They cry, they laugh, they hold each other while they come down from their orgasms. They doze off every now and then, T’Challa’s hands still nestled between M’Baku’s heavy thighs. 

When M’Baku next awakens, it is to the feeling of T’Challa pressing dozens of kisses to his face. M’Baku reaches up and holds their foreheads together, simply enjoying the miracle of T’Challa’s life, of his body draped across his own. Outside, the night is just beginning to turn, the early morning sky a pale abalone grey.

“I missed you,” M’Baku says, stroking T’Challa’s cheek. 

Three simple words, but they hold the weight of the past five years within them.

T’Challa holds M’Baku’s face in his hands, his eyes as bright as stars.

“Marry me,” T’Challa whispers. “I don’t pretend to know what the years ahead will bring, but I want to face them with you.” T’Challa’s lower lip trembles, and M’Baku feels his heart expanding within his chest. “Spend your life with me, M’Baku. I can’t bear to-“

M’Baku crushes their mouths together, rolling over and covering T’Challa’s body with his own.

“I’ve been yours since our first harvest together,” M’Baku says. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

They make love again as the sun rises, their bodies moving in perfect tandem. They move at a dream-like, leisurely pace, drinking each other in, basking in their love for each other. Halfway through, T’Challa begins to say “I love you” over and over again, as if it is the only thing he knows how to say now. M’Baku says it back as T’Challa comes, his own voice rising as his thrusts increase, as he nears the apex of his pleasure. When M’Baku finally spills inside of T’Challa and collapses onto his chest, T’Challa is still saying those same precious words, murmuring them against M’Baku’s skin like a prayer.

It is then that M’Baku realizes what T’Challa whispered to him in his bed all those years ago, with only the harvest moon to witness their beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from “Your Bones” by Of Monsters and Men, which is a *fantastic* song to cry to, if I do say so myself.
> 
> This week marks my one-year anniversary of starting my ao3 account. Thank you all for reading, and thank you all for your kind comments.


End file.
